Efficiency and sustainability evaluation of a pollution-free vegetable production system based on emergy analysis

Abstract

Substantial development is needed in the production of pollution鄄free vegetables to ensure the quality, safety, and competitiveness of vegetables in China. In contrast to customary vegetable production, pollution鄄free production uses organic fertilizers and biological pesticides instead of chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides. This mode of production improves the safety of the vegetables and reduces environmental pollution, and the government is encouraging its use throughout China. Nevertheless, there is still considerable scope for research into efficient and sustainable vegetable production. Emergy evaluation is an effective tool in analyzing the efficiency and sustainability of an ecological system, which addresses the weakness of traditional energy analysis and expresses different forms of energy using a common physical basis, namely, solar emergy. It also has the advantage of taking into consideration aspects such as natural resources, labor,